Merry Mail Ornament Exchange

{This post is a little late but better late than never :)}

This year was the first year that I have actually been in the Christmasy spirit in at least the last 3 years. A few years ago I lost someone very close to me close to Christmas which has made this festive season hard to deal with since then. For some reason though, this year it felt like I was finally healed and I could enjoy the joy of Christmas. So much so, that I actually decorated our apartment in November!! Yes, crazy person here *waves*

I digress. It was this Christmasy spirit that had me sign up for the Merry Mail Ornament Exchange when I stumbled upon it on Amber's awesome blog And Yes to Joy. Pretty much, anyone who wanted to sign up got paired with other bloggers from around the world. We then had to make our own DIY Christmas ornaments and send them to each other. Talk about a fun and super festive way to spread the love!! I think this will become a regular thing for me if it happens again because I got to meet (virtually) 3 amazing women that are literally, all over the world.

The first ornament that showed up at my home was from Annabel over at Annabel and Alice. And let me tell you, this girl is a craft super hero. The ornaments she sent I immediately fell in love with. Could be because they were full of glitter or could be because she included some candy canes, not sure ;) Here are some photos of the ones she sent. Oh and PS, she's from Australia! How cool is that?!

Glitter glitter glitter!!!!!

These two were SO cute. I especially love the one on the left!

Which is why I had to feature it by itself!!

Annabel, these are absolutely beautiful and I can't wait to unpack them and put them on my Christmas tree for years to come :)

The second ornament to show up at my home was from Molly over at Sundrops and Rainflowers. When I opened this package I literally started tearing up. As you all know, I love yoga. And Molly made her ornament specific for my love of yoga. The below quote is from her blog talking about what she made:

I’ve always admired the benefits of yoga. I have fond memories of watching my mother do yoga poses on her mat in the morning light, doing her controlled breathing, trying her best not to let our cat crawl all over her and disrupt things.I attended a couple classes with my mom a few times once. At the end of the class, we followed the instructor’s lead by putting our hands together and repeating “namaste”. I love the peaceful and spiritual feeling the word gives me, so when I found this tutorial, I wanted to give it a try.

 This girl seriously did her homework and obviously put a lot of thought and love into what she made. The thing I think I like most about this ornament is that I can hang it in my home all year round!! Check it out:

Speechless :)

Molly, this is so beautiful. I can't put into words how much I love this ornament. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And last but not least, the final ornament was from Abby over at Little City Adventures. Abby, not knowingly, made me an ornament that reminds me of my second favorite part of Christmas, snow. I'm not sure how she did it but in person, this ornament looks like a snow storm inside a sphere. I'm assuming it was different kinds of paints or powders/textures, but whatever it is, it's brilliant. It even matched this Christmas since it was the first year in the last 5 years that Halifax had a white Christmas. It was even snowing Christmas morning!!!

It's hard to see the detail in photo but trust me, it's beautiful :)

Abby, thank you so much for this mini snow storm looking ornament. I have always found that snow has a magical element to it and now I can add that magic to my tree every year!!

As for what I sent to the girls..

Salt dough

 I don't think I'm the most crafty of persons. Especially when that craftyness involves baking too. I made a batch of these salt dough ornaments and only a handful of them turned out. So I painted them and bundled them up to go to Abby and Molly. Salt dough is pretty simple to make (go here for a tutorial) but I had the oven too hot (figured that out a few days later) and that's what made some of them come out poorly. If you try this out, make sure to follow the instructions directly!

Instead of trying again on another batch I decided I would make something different for Annabel. Her blog focuses on reviewing books. I found out that she (like myself) is a fan of Harry Potter and I had just saw a pin on pinterest showing how to make a quidditch snitch ornament. Obviously, I had to try making it myself.

The concern I had about the original design is that it is quite long and I figured it would be hard to ship at that length. So instead of having the wings spread like the one below (this one I made for myself afterwards) I had the wings folded in/back. If you're curious about that set up, check out the photo Annabel posted on her blog here.

If you try this one yourself and use glitter, try spraying the wings with hairspray to make sure it doesn't get glitter everywhere!

This was such an awesome experience and I'm so happy to have made some new friends in the blog-o-sphere. I can't wait to do it again next year!!

Did you make any crafts over the holidays?

Catch up #1

So... I originally planned to do a vlog for my catch up post. I took the video thinking that I could edit out some MAJOR bloopers but turns out I don't have any video editing software. Which means I have to do this the old fashioned way.

I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in my last post but for the first week of December I was pretty sick. The second week I was recovering. So for two weeks I wasn't eating a whole lot and couldn't do any exercising. Then with Christmas coming up I got so crazy so quickly it's not even funny. I hand made 40 Christmas cards this year to give out to family and friends. I had ALL of my Christmas shopping to complete. Matt and I went to Wentworth for a weekend. I made 7 dozen cookies. Made 14 candles. Put up our Christmas tree and all of the decorations... And the list goes on and on.

I haven't been photographing everything I eat but here are some of the highlights.

Jackie's love potion smoothly from the juice bar at Pete's Fruitique.

Breakfast wrap from Pete's Fruitique.

Pete's makes the BEST salads ever!!

These are the best granola bars I have EVER had. I have been trying to find them again but can't. Might have to make my own.

Chicken, cous cous and veggies.

ColdStone Creamery chocolate chip cookie dough. This is to die for. I could gain sooo much weight if I had no self control. lol.

Eggs benedict at Smitty's.

Nachos.

Homemade waffles for Dad's birthday.

Sandwich - mixed greens, tofurky, avocado and tomato.

Chocolate chip cookie dough cake for Dad's birthday.

Sushi.. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmm. This one is called the green dragon. It has shrimp tampura, avocado and crab on the inside and then avocado on top too.

Thai noodles. I made these from a box but I want to try making them from scratch next time.

Indian style curry veggies.

Fabulous M&M and oatmeal cookies.

Cookies all baked. I haven't made cookies in a while so I over cooked them. Oops!

Tomorrow I'll post all of my Christmas decorations. I'll be photographing what I eat starting Christmas day again and hopefully I'll get into the post a day routine again.

Start Over

So as you can tell the blog has been lacking this past week. That is because a lot has happened. Last weekend work had it's annual Christmas party. Saturday was SO busy between running to the mall, getting ready and go to two parties before the Christmas party at 7pm. I will be honest, I drank a few drinks too many and Sunday was completely wrote off as a recovery day.

I'm not sure if I picked something up at the party or when I got back to work but on Tuesday I started to show flu symptoms. Nothing major, just kept getting the chills and I felt achy all over. Decided not to go to work on Wednesday and tried to get healthy. Ate some soup, drank some tea and lots of water. Wednesday night my mom calls telling me they are bringing out cat Missy to the vet as she is bleeding maybe from her lungs? A little while after that phone she calls again to let me know that an xray showed there was a tumor in her lungs and the vet gave her a couple of days left to live. Missy is the first pet I ever remember owning. We got her when I was like 6 or 7 years old. That's 16 years people! Not many cats live such a long life. We all knew Missy hasn't been really healthy the past few years because of weight loss but was never diagnosed with anything when brought to the vet. So my parents decided it was time for her to rest. I jumped in my car in my pj's and drove to the vet to see her. If any of you have met Missy, you'll know she is a pretty grumpy cat. Pretty much only lets my sister, mom and dad pat her (yeah, she doesn't like me much). The vet had given her Valium before I got there and she was realllly calm. No hissing or groaning like usual. We all said our good byes and then the vet gave her the shot.

That is one job that would be really hard. Especially since I cry as soon as I see someone crying.

On the way to the vet I started to get some stomach pains. Afterward they were so bad I couldn't drive. So my dad drove my car and I went with mom back to their place. By the time we got to their house the pains had gotten a lot worse. It literally felt like there were ninjas in my stomach. That was the only way I could describe it. An hour after they started though they went away and I was back to just the regular flu ish symptoms. I drove home after some tea and got some rest.

5am Thursday morning though I woke up in tears because the ninjas were back and kicking my ass! I knew this could be normal so Matt drove me to the emergency. By the time I got in to see a doctor the pains had stopped (almost exactly an hour after I had woke up). The doctor went through my symptoms, asked some questions and felt my abdomen and said she thought it was just some extreme gas. She said if they continued to happen into Friday or if they got worse to come back in. Right when we were about to go she asked if she could do an ultra sound for her learning. Turns out she finished an ultra sound course and needs 200 scans in order to get the credit. If I can help someone with their education than I definitely will so I said sure! And I'm really glad I did.

Her and her boss scanned my whole abdomen and pointed out all of my organs; heart, diaphragm, liver, kidneys, spleen, bladder and uterus. Turns out I am one of the 20% of women that have an anti-verted uterus which basically means that instead of my uterus tilting towards my spine it tilts towards my belly button. This doesn't cause any issues with pregnancy it's just something that isn't common in women. They even took a photo of it so she could use it for her class. Kind of cool eh?

Yesterday was another sick day. Had soup, toast and tea and just watched movies/tv with Matt all day. Nothing very exciting. And today went the exact same way. I woke up with a bit of a fever but Tylenol took care of that. I'm glad to say the stomach ninjas have not come back. Yay!!! I don't ever want a visit from them again.

I'm not glad to say that it doesn't look like I will be better tomorrow and tomorrow morning is the Santa Shuffle. I was really excited about doing another run this year and my 10km training and everything but looks like it will have to be postponed. I haven't done any training in the past week so I'm hoping to just start again at week one once I'm healthy again. I have also decided to post pone the cans for comments deadline. Instead of it ending on the 8th it will now end on the 15th. I haven't really posted anything for you all to comment on until now so hopefully between now and the 15th there will be lots to comment on.

Time to bring this post to a close. I'm sorry it was so long but oh well, blogs are for reading right? Here are some photos from the Christmas party last weekend. I won't be posting daily photos of what I eat just because I haven't been eating much while sick. Those will start once I'm healthy again. I'm hoping to do a review of The Lost Symbol tomorrow. Stay tuned :)

The beautiful Alexis and I.



Matt and I, yes I know our purples don't match. lol.

At a friends house before the party.